Check in when you're OK. If you can't, someone is told.

How a check-in works, end to end

A check-in is the smallest safety habit there is: prove you're OK before a deadline, or let the deadline speak for you.

• Open Settings → Safety & Alerts and choose the safety timer.
• Set the deadline — 15, 30, 60 minutes, or a custom interval.
• Choose recipients from your emergency contacts and your Crew. Selecting someone does not notify them; they only ever hear from a timer that actually escalates.
• Arm the timer before you head out.
• NAVTRL prompts you when the deadline is close. Acknowledge and the timer resets.
• Let it lapse without acknowledging and the timer escalates on its own.

What a missed check-in actually does

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is where safety apps usually overpromise.

• Escalation runs on our servers rather than on your phone, which is the whole point: a phone that has gone quiet is the case it exists for.
• Your Crew receives a push notification and a Crew activity event.
• The recipients you selected receive a push notification and an email.
• Both carry your last known location and the time that position was recorded — the timestamp is what makes it actionable.
• The event lands in the in-app notification history of everyone it reached, and stays there. A push notification is a banner that disappears; the question after an incident is what was sent, to whom, and when.
• Nothing goes out by SMS, and nobody is dispatched. NAVTRL notifies the people you chose. It is not a monitoring centre and it does not contact emergency services.

Solo outdoors and working alone

The same timer covers two audiences the industry usually splits apart, because the situation underneath is identical: one person, no witnesses, and a deadline somebody should notice.

• Solo hunters, anglers, hikers, trail runners, and paddlers.
• Working alone: guides and outfitters running a client trip, survey and forestry crews spread across a block, ranch and agriculture staff on a far fence line, utility subcontractors on a night call-out.
• Small field crews of two to twenty who split up during the day and regroup afterwards.
• Anyone driving a long empty stretch, or heading somewhere the coverage runs out before the work does.
• Families and friends who want a plain "I'm back" instead of a live dot all day.

Check-in timer or dead-man switch

They are one feature with two modes, not two products. A check-in timer is a one-time prompt for a single outing; the dead-man switch repeats, so a long shift keeps asking. Both escalate the same way — push and email to your Crew and the recipients you selected, carrying your last known location. NAVTRL never sends an SMS on your behalf, in either mode.

What a check-in is not

An honest backstop is more useful than an overstated one, so here is the boundary.

There is no monitoring centre behind this and no staffed queue watching for your name. There is no man-down or fall detection, no recurring roster that arms itself for tomorrow's shift, no configurable escalation policy or tiered call-out, no supervisor web dashboard, and no compliance export or reporting. If your safety plan has to evidence those, NAVTRL is not that product today.

For true emergencies, carry a dedicated device — a satellite communicator or a monitored beacon. A check-in timer tells the people you chose that you did not answer; it cannot send anyone.

A deadline is not a licence to watch you

Arming a check-in does not put you Live in a Crew, and going Live in a Crew does not arm a check-in. They are separate decisions with separate audiences, which is deliberate: a timer is a promise about one moment, not permission to follow someone through their day.

A missed check-in publishes your last known location to the people you had already chosen. Nothing else changes about who can see you, and your Crew sharing stays exactly as you set it — Live, Dark, or approximate.

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